Quick Hitter I: Know the Meta

(Note: Quick Hitter articles are posts that are my short reflections on X-Wing concepts and ideas. These posts are meant to be concise and somewhat incisive.)

Whether you're starting out in X-Wing or have a few chronological years of experience (but not a lot of competitive experience), one of the key pieces of advice I can give is to know which squads are popular in the different tournament types out there. In other words, beyond the rules of the game, you have to familiar with the "metagame," or meta, which is the game above the game. This specifically refers to understanding the squads and upgrades that are prevalent in current tournament play.

For the X-Wing player, you only have to concern yourself with two types of tournaments: Extended and Hyperspace. The primary difference between the two types is that Extended allows for ALL ships and upgrades to be used in the creation of your squad, while Hyperspace limits the pool of available ships, pilots, and upgrades to ones that both coincide with the waves of released ships and with whatever ships and upgrades Fantasy Flights Games (i.e. the maker of the game) have deemed permissible so that any one faction is balanced with the others. In other words, if you own one or more Conversion Kits, and you want to pick from the full panoply of options, then Extended is the way to go; however, if you have been buying Second Edition X-Wing ships in retail blister packs, then consider Hyperspace format.

Now, once you have selected a tournament type, check out this site: https://meta.listfortress.com/, which is also known as MetaWing 2.0. Through this website, you can select the tournament type and research which ships, upgrades, and "archetypes" (i.e. templates of squads) are prevalent at tournaments. From here, you can either select your ships and kit them out with the upgrades that are used by high performers, or select an archetype that has been successful and emulate it. After that, I strongly recommend planning, preparing, and practicing with that squad archetype to learn its tendencies and strengths. After that, try out a local tournament, observe what others are playing, and do your best to fly your squad well.

One more thing: realize that what people play at tournaments depends on the importance of the event. During X-Wing casual night at your local game store, count on other players (particularly the competitive ones) playing with wacky "fun" squads or with squad concepts that they are testing for future tournaments; this is not a reflection of the meta. During the monthly tournaments that your local store may run, you may find meta-prevalent squads, depending on what prizes are at stake. At Hyperspace Trials, store championships, and other large-scale tournaments, you can expect to find meta squads in full force. Whatever squad you bring should be driven by your goals for any tournament, whether your goal is to test an idea, learn a meta squad, or to just have fun. Of course, winning is always a goal!